Kwan (simply)
by ItTicklesLikeCrazy
Summary: This is my Christmas gift to you. Obsessed with knocking Danny Fenton down a few pegs, Dash orders his fellow A-List members, consisting of Kwan, Paulina, Star, and himself, to find out Fenton's secret at all costs. After they find out, he states he'll post the material all over school, and the A-List members get to it. But Kwan starts to doubt, and through that, gets the closest.
1. Chapter 1

**Close to done, or halfway. This has short chapters, I'm pretty sure, but I'll just ignore that. i wrote it a while ago, here you go. ENJOY!**

**THIS IS MY ONE AND ONLY DISCLAIMER STATING THAT I DON NOT AND PROBABLY WILL NOT EVER OWN DANNY PHANTOM OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS OR ANY OTHER OF THE SHOWS OR BOOKS OR ANYTHING I MGIHT MENTION. THANK YOU.**

Dash snickered loudly as he picked up the phone. Currently, all four big members of the A-List were crammed in a tiny Janitor's closet, including me. I was pretty sure that with one more jab, Paulina's elbow was going to make me a Kwan-ka-bob.

I glanced over at Star, who had a just-barely-caring expression on her face, looking down at her nails. I really didn't want to be in here, especially when it wasn't even worth it. If I could help it, I wouldn't ruin my arch-foe's life if it meant I had to have Paulina's bony elbow shoved in my face and Dash's horrible BO up my nose. Unfortunately, if I didn't want to be replaced, I had to.

Dash finished dialing the number, which I had no idea how he had gotten, and pressed send. His fat thumb jammed down the speaker button and the sound of a phone ringing filled the tiny space. On the fifth ring the ringing stopped and a voice growled, "Whoever you are, this better be important!"

Wow, he actually sounded dangerous, and kind of annoyed. It was probably his sister, what had Jazz done to aggravate him?

Before Dash could even respond, we heard a crash on the other end of the line and a loud protest that was probably Fenton. "Excuse me for a sec," he commanded. There was a soft click, probably Fenton setting down the phone on a table or desk. In the period that followed there were several thumps, muffled over the phone line.

"Anyway, who are you?" That was Fenton again. He seemed a lot more gruff and un-cowardly over the phone.

Dash, however, was apparently unfazed, because he gave off a laugh that would forever send chills down my spine and whispered, "Why Danny, you didn't think we'd figure it out?" He used Fenton's first name to throw off suspicion.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, then, "I have no idea what you're talking about and can you please tell me your name, creepy stalker person, so I can report you to the police?"

"Oh, I think you do know what I'm talking about. Your little secret. You didn't think you could keep it forever?" Dash continued in the whispery tone.

Another pause, this one longer. "You're kidding, right?" came the reply.

"I'm completely serious." Dash was just a little too good at this.

Yet another pause was heard, but this one was the shortest. "Well?" he asked finally. "What do you want? You're not going to tell me exactly how you're going to reveal my secret to the entire world, making me the most hated being on the planet. You're not going to rant on how much of a freak I am, and how I better turn myself over to the Idiots-in-White now because I have no chance? You're not going to blackmail me or torture me or make myself reveal my secret because otherwise you will?"

Dash looked in surprise at the cell phone in his hand. What was Fenton's secret? We didn't know exactly what, but even before Phantom saved the world from the Disasteriod in the beginning of sophomore year we'd noticed something was weird. Now it was the end of sophomore year. I had pointed it out to my girlfriend that he was hiding something, along with Foley and Manson. She was the one who had pointed it out to Dash and Paulina. She looked like she was regretting that now.

"What, no reply? I'm way to busy for this, but you know that don't you? Look, I have to go buy another alarm clock, because I blasted the last one. I'll meet you, whoever you are, in the park tomorrow at 4:10. Sorry if I'm late, but as you know, I have a busy and unreliable schedule. See you there." With a click, the line died, leaving all four of us A-Listers standing in surprise in an old, smelly Janitor's closet.

Dash turned, and the action upset the careful balance I had managed, sending me crashing to the ground. On the upside, it got Paulina's elbow out of my groin. As Dash helped me up and we all filed out of the closet, I couldn't help but wonder how I was going to get any sleep tonight. Fenton's tone of voice had scared me more than I cared to admit. It had always been a constant that Danny Fenton was a wimp. If that were untrue, the next thing would be the sky turning orange.

**This is your Christmas present. I wrote it a while ago, but since I didn't have anything new, this is what I posted. **


	2. Chapter 2

School was unbearable, more than usual. My eyes kept wandering to Fenton, and he was rather fidgety, always looking around. A couple times, he caught me staring at him, and would glare so harsh that I would quickly turn my head back to whatever teacher was preaching at the moment.

After what seemed like an eternity, the final bell rung, leaving most of us to wander away and do whatever we did after school. Fenton, however, had detention until 4:00. He hadn't had it until this morning, when Lancer had snapped at him for being late. It was as if he had expected it and set the time of our meeting accordingly. But his excuse had been waking up late; he couldn't have planned that, could he?

For the time until 4:10, I hung out at Nasty Burger with Dash, Star, and Paulina while Mikey did my homework in a booth two away from ours. I couldn't help but be curious about him. What if, like Fenton, he wasn't all he seemed to be? Did he talk serious on the phone too; did he have a secret as well?

At four, Dash got up and strode outside. I was younger than him, but he had failed the drivers' test so for five more weeks I had to drive him around. We all piled into the car, Star in the back even though she was my girlfriend because Dash had commandeered shotgun. She seemed okay with it though, she was probably used to the backseat. With Paulina and Dash in charge, the only action we saw was the stuff they had deemed okay for us. That meant we didn't get any of the fun loser stuff, and we didn't get any of the fun popular stuff.

We reached the park at 4:11. I felt it would be rude to keep Fenton waiting, especially when he was probably nervous as heck from us "finding out his secret". Still, Dash insisted we make him wait for us. We really shouldn't be doing this, any of this. I almost felt bad for him.

Dash and Paulina set the pace to walk to the middle of the park. A slow saunter was what it really was. We got to the middle of the park just in time to see Phantom sucking the Box Ghost, whose name I knew because of the innumerable times he had screamed it, into his thermos.

Paulina was about to shout at him, after all, she was totally infatuated with him, when he flew off so fast he looked like a black and white blur. A moment later, he went invisible. Paulina gave a little disheartened sigh and sat on the fountain near ours edge. She had just gotten out her nail file when I saw Fenton.

He was walking up rather slowly, and he looked tense. He kept sweeping the area with his eyes, like he was looking for whoever had called him last night. There were a couple people in the "middle" of the park. Us, a woman with a baby carriage, an African American man in a black trench coat, a young couple with two little girls, and a teenage boy with dozens of piercings.

He went and sat down on the grass leaning casually back on his hands until he was in a not-quite-sitting-but-not-quite-lying-down posture. His blue eyes closed lazily as he enjoyed the beautiful day. Dash motioned for the rest of us to join him as he left the park fountain and circled around to try to sneak up on Fenton.

He did some unnecessary spy movements and we were about four meters away from Fenton when, "Dash, what in the world are you doing?"

Fenton had never opened his eyes, and sure we hadn't been spy quiet, but there was no way he could have heard enough to know that it was Dash.

The previously mentioned blonde jock seemed to be threatened by this display of awareness and hissed, "We know your secret, Fenton!"

He cocked his head at us, still on the ground. "You're telling me that you four figured out my big secret? Oh, Sam was right, I really do need to come up with more excuses than the bathroom one. You four think I have bladder issues, right?"

"We know your real secret, Fenton. The secret that you really don't want exposed. We're not talking about the 'you love Sam' secret either. We're talking about the real deal. The real, bona fide, secret. " Fenton blushed bright pink at the Sam comment, but at the end of Dash's rant, his cheeks were back to normal. He slowly got to his feet and stood, tall and proud. He was only a little shorter than Dash now, and was around the exact same height as me, taller than the girls.

"So, are you here to tell me you think I'm awesome, or is this a blackmail gig, or what? If it's the first one, I'm telling you I forgive you for the 'irreversible psychological damage' you did to me through bullying, quoting Jazz. I'm kinda over Paulina, and I'm surprised she didn't 'claw your eyes out with her perfectly manicured nails' for the 'I love Sam' comment. If it's the second one, I'm not stealing any test answers, because that led to a pretty seriously bad situation for me. Actually, I'm not stealing anything, and I'm not wrecking the reputation I've built up either. I'm not going to hurt you or anything, but I can find a way to keep you quiet about this. Sam might suggest blackmailing you back."

"Whoa, Fenturd. Shut up. We don't want you to steal anything. But why would you mention you being over Paulina? How are you over Paulina? And why would you think you're awesome. You're a loser!"

"Wait…Fenturd?" His eyes lit up like Christmas lights. "So you don't know. Good, because I am so not in the mood for another outbreak. And I'm already having problems with my parents and Valerie anyway. I don't need a bunch of misguided A-Listers giving anything away. Well, good-bye now," he finished and began to walk away.

I was absolutely baffled. How had he known we hadn't known just by what Dash had said? We called him a loser and Fenturd all the time. And why had he though we were going to make him steal anything. I could probably steal something much easier than him, and so could Dash, Paulina, or Star. Each one of us had get out of trouble free cards because of our wealth. He'd be in major trouble if he got caught stealing. Did he really think we were that bad of people that we'd make him risk his whole life because we wanted something and didn't want to pay for it?

The better question was about on of the earlier statements. He'd said, 'I forgive you for the bullying' in short. Why would he forgive anybody for that? Ever since he stood up for Mikey in seventh grade almost every single bully had been after him. Especially Dash, the ringleader of it all, and he forgave us? Why did he even think we'd seek forgiveness? I mean, I did, but the bully act is supposed to make them think that we don't want it. There was something going on with that secret, something weird.

Dash stamped his foot on the ground and yelled in frustration as all four of us watched Fenton's nest of black hair disappear around a street corner. "That's it!" he screamed, "I'm finding out what that secret is, and I'm telling everybody!" The loudness of his voice caused the baby in the carriage to start crying.


	3. Chapter 3

Later that day, around 6:30, the four of us met up at the Nasty Burger. We each ordered something, hamburgers for Dash and me and salads for the ladies. I saw Star eyeing my burger hungrily and I indiscreetly slipped some of my fries to her under the table. Star wasn't really a salad person.

"So, here's the plan. We follow Fenton around until we find out his secret. Then we coordinate a meeting and share with the rest of us. Then we write it on posters and post them all over school and sit back and watch when Fenton gets there."

I felt bad for Fenton, he hadn't really done much to deserve Dash's wrath, besides fight for the other nerds. He never fought for himself, which is what made him a prime target for bullies. They got to hit as much as they wanted within reason, with no fear of retribution. Even Mikey had a limit, because you couldn't hit him too hard if you wanted your homework done.

And so the plan began tomorrow at school. Star was the first one on Fenton-Watch, since she had homeroom and first period with him. She told me between the break between first and second period that he had been late to homeroom by eight minutes, and had rushed out twice during first period. Both times he had gasped suddenly before asking to be excused. It had been close to fifteen minutes the first time, but the second it was only a few.

Nobody had him second period, but we asked a fellow football jock called Chris and he said Fenton had run out two times, the first he had gasped, the second Foley had kicked him in the shin and tossed him a note. The first time he was gone for almost a third the entire class period. The second time he hadn't come back to class.

Both Paulina and Dash had him third, and he had run out three times, each time after gasping. He took around five to fifteen minutes before coming back each time.

I had him forth, with Star, and he ran out one time, after another gasp. I could have sworn I saw his breath, but it was almost summer and way to hot for that.

Lunch was…interesting. He came in and got school cafeteria food, along with Foley and Manson, and started talking and shoveling food into his mouth. He managed to get all of his food down his gullet in a couple minutes, talk to Manson and Foley, and still not be disgustingly gross. Foley kept shooting curious glances at our table, while Manson settled for a purple-eyed, non-blinking, death glare. I could only guess that Fenton had told them about what had happened yesterday.

Suddenly, with around half an hour left of lunch, Fenton sat up stiffly. He said something to his friends, and then raced out of the cafeteria, towards the bathroom. I knew what had happened, mystery meat did that to you.

"WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND!" screamed a voice from behind me. I turned to see a blue-skinned ghost in pink pajamas staring with pleading eyes at a couple of guys who were on the team. They screamed in terror, like you always do in a ghost attack, and dropped to their knees.

"Nobody will want to be your friend, Klemper, if you scare them like that. What have I told you about bugging Boxy?" I turned again, to see Phantom floating in mid-air, arms crossed across his chest. There was a white strap across his torso, but it didn't cover the infamous logo. Stuck to the strap was one of the thermos thingys he always used.

"I cannot find the Box Ghost. Do you want a hug, friend?"

"Heh heh, no." Phantom stated. "I have to do a deposit at home anyway, and Boxy is in the thermos. You want a ride?" Klemper nodded vigorously and Phantom took the thermos of his back. He aimed it at Klemper and a blue beam of light shot out. Klemper was quickly sucked into the thermos and Phantom capped it.

"Phantom!" came a yell. Paulina was standing on top of a table, waving her hands around like an overeager kindergartener.

"Uh…yes?" Phantom looked uncomfortable as he slowly floated down to Paulina's level. She gave him her most dazzling smile, the one that any boy would kill to be on the receiving end of. Any boy, except for Phantom, apparently.

"Well, there's that new movie coming out on Friday, and I was wondering if you wanted to take me? I know you're a ghost and don't have much money, so I'll pay for everything." She lowered her eyelids seductively and flared her lips of so slightly. This was flirting very hard for Paulina, because with most boys all she had to do was smile in their direction and they'd be drooling.

Phantom rubbed his neck nervously and gave a weak smile. "Uhh…I'd love to, but I've got a full time superhero gig and all. I'm kinda busy…" he lowered his voice so I had to strain to hear, "…especially with the out-of-state trips."

Paulina pouted pitifully and batted her eyes at him. He gave her a sympathetic, green-eyed stare, then turned and flew away. Right before he phased through the ceiling, a yell came. "PHANTOM!" it barked. Everybody turned to see a figure in red standing on a hover board.

"Hey," Phantom greeted her. "If this is about Danielle, can we talk away from prying ears?"

"Sure," the girl in red said. Phantom darted down, grabbed her hand, turned them both intangible, and flew them through the ceiling. I stared at the spot on the ceiling where they had gone through a couple moments after, they disappeared, then sighed, dumped the remainder of my lunch in the trash, and walked away from the inevitable drama-fest that was about to happen because Phantom had rejected Paulina. He obviously wasn't interested, but he didn't want to say it directly to her face because he was too nice.

Suddenly, an echo of Fenton's words from yesterday came back to me. I'm kinda over Paulina. So there were two boys in the entire world that weren't gay and didn't like Paulina. Well, at least I though neither was gay. Fenton had it pretty bad for the Manson chick, and Phantom didn't really give off the gay vibe.

Fifth period was English with Lancer, and all of us had it with Fenton. He ran out two times, gasping first. The second time I thought Mr. Lancer was going to say no, but he let Fenton go.

Sixth period only Paulina had him, and she reported he ran out two times, both after gasping. Seventh period none of us had him, but Kyle, another guy on the team, said he had run out one time, after gasping. Kyle asked why we wanted to know Fenton's schedule. Dash asked Kyle if he wanted to know what the inside of a locker looked like.

Eighth period, none of us had him, again. We had to resort to asking Mikey. He told us that Fenton had lasted until around halfway in. Foley, who wasn't even in that class, and come running knocking and asked the teacher for a stapler. He had slipped something onto Fenton's desk on his way out, and Fenton had gotten a nervous look on his face. Fenton had waited about a minute and a half after Foley left before asking to leave. He hadn't come back.

Mikey asked why we wanted to know, like Kyle. Unfortunately for Mikey, he didn't have the high status of the football team like Kyle did, and had mercilessly been crammed and locked in a locker.


	4. Chapter 4

We hung around school after it got out, waiting for Fenton to come back to get his stuff. Each of us was posted near an entrance, but we didn't see him come in, He, however, did bump right into me when he came out. He had mumbled an apology before he saw who it was.

"Hey Kwan," he had greeted. He'd always been nice to me, even though I was a total jerk to him. I briefly remembered that time when he was popular and I was a loser. He hadn't rubbed it in at all. Or that time when we were all infected with a ghostly virus, he didn't make fun of Dash for watching soap operas.

Thinking back on that, he hadn't looked that sick, not like the rest of us. I'll put that on the list of thing I wasn't supposed to notice because I wasn't supposed to notice losers. Of course, everybody noticed them once in a while, probably from their total lack of common sense. You ran right past them during a ghost attack, they just stood there.

Actually, that wasn't totally true. The Goth chick and Tucker the Techno-boy ran, but I can't actually remember seeing Fenton outside the school when we evacuated. Strange. But I guess we were all too busy obsessing over Phantom to notice Fenton.

"Kwan?" Fenton waved a hand in front of my face. "You okay? You kinda spaced out there." Funny, how he talked to me. The other nerds talked to me gently, like I was a threat. He spoke like I was a…not quite a friend, but not something to be feared beyond the normal level. He spoke to me like he should speak to Nathan or Mikey. Not quite friends, but on the same side in the battle. Allies.

"I'm fine," I replied, a little shocked by the realization. He was supposed to be afraid of me. I was supposed to be a threat. But the bigger shocker was that, in an odd way, I was kind of relieved.

"Okay then," he said, giving me an odd look. "Are you sure? You're just standing in the middle of the path, staring into space."

"I'm fine," I repeated, more forcefully, remembering who I was talking to. I cracked my knuckles menacingly. "I would worry about myself if I were you."

I swear the look he gave me was like 'Really? You want to take me on? Go ahead. I've beat worse than you.' And then suddenly, the rumors came back to me. Fenton's mysterious injuries. About seeing him hanging out with a biker. How he was in gangs, or doing drugs. How Cassie Martinez swore up and down he had a full on eight-pack underneath his shirt, and his biceps were better than Dash's. I felt like cowering.

But all he did was shrug. "Okay, well, I'll just be going. I've got to go talk to Valerie. So, see you around?" He turned away and kept walking, and I squared my shoulders and pulled out my phone. I texted Dash, Paulina, and Star the same message, that I'd seen Fenton and was tailing him.

Then, I hurried after him, trying to remain inconspicuous. He walked at an abnormally fast pace for a loser, and I had to halfway-jog to keep up, which was a surprise. A couple pedestrians gave me strange looks because of this, but I ignored them, because I knew Dash would have my head if I lost him.

Fenton was unusual, I was really beginning to see the extent of that now. I'd known there was something strange about him before, but now. Well, now it was really evident. He was nice where ever other person would be fearful. All the rumors had to be based on something. Was he really muscled underneath that dorky tee shirt?

Lost in my thoughts, I didn't notice that Fenton suddenly cut to the right until he was out of my view. Surprised, I peered down all the possible ways for him to have gone, but I didn't see him. Desperate, I finally headed down an alley near where he had disappeared suddenly, hoping to find a clue. There was nothing that I could find.

Suddenly, something slammed me against a wall with such force that my head cracked back and hit against the wall so hard I saw stars. "Who are you and why are you following me?" growled a voice. I tried to get my vision in order, and just as it focused, a hand was clamped over my eyes.

"I know you're not Kwan," growled the voice. "So I'll say again, who are you, and why are you following me?"

"But I am Kwan," I muttered, trying to place where I'd heard the voice before. "I don't think I'm following you. I'm following Danny Fenton…" my voice died in my throat. When we had called Fenton earlier, he'd used this voice. It wasn't different from his voice, really, but it didn't have the same kind feeling in it. It was all business. Maybe he really was in gangs.

"Alright…" said Fenton, a little unsure. "Why are you following Dany Fenton?"

"I'm following you because Dash wants to find out your secret and post it all over school."

Just like that, the hand dropped from my eyes, and I saw Fenton looking into them questioningly for a moment before the hand (ONLY ONE?!) holding me hard to the wall let go. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I guess I'm just a little paranoid." He rubbed the back of his neck and sent me a little quizzical glance.

"Why is Dash so determined in finding out my secret?" he wondered.

"Revenge, I guess," I replied shakily. Fenton had scared me, and I never thought I'd think that sentence. "Uhh…why would I not be Kwan?"

His eyes locked on mine for a moment, as if hoping to see something in them. His expression was one of hopefulness also, but after a couple seconds he looked away and shrugged. "Just…don't tell anybody about this, okay And stop following me."

"Why shouldn't I tell anybody?" I blurted. "I mean, I wouldn't. My reputation would be ruined and I'd probably be kicked out of the A-List, but you might make the bullying stop if you showed a little of that muscle."

"I don't want that," he said sincerely. "Just keep it under wraps, please?" This confrontation was so odd, I could only nod. He patted me awkwardly not he back and walked away, shooting a couple looks over his shoulder before vanishing from view.

I pulled out my phone and dialed Dash's number, fidgeting while it rang. Finally, he picked up. "Kwan?"

"Dash, I don't think we should be trying to find out Fenton's secret." I blurted.

"What?" he asked, a killer tone in his voice.

"I don't think we should be finding out Fenton's secret, Dash. It seems like a really mean thing to do. He's always nice to us, right?" Plus, he just slammed me up against a wall with little to no effort, but Dash didn't need to know that.

"Are you backing out?" He asked menacingly.

The tone of his voice changed my mind. "No!" I said quickly, and then instantly regretted it. Let it be known that I am a total jerk. A big, fat, lying jerk.

"Good," Dash said. "You're on Fenton duty the rest of the afternoon. Paulina, Star, and I will be at the movies, so don't call. And don't let him out of your sight, okay?"

"Okay," I answered, mentally kicking myself repeatedly. It was a good thing I had very little dignity because what was left of it just shattered.

"Don't back out on me, dude," Dash said. "I really need to know this secret. Don't you want to see Fenton humiliated. A nerd should know his place."

"Yeah," I said, my voice a hollow echo. He, of course, didn't notice a thing. "Sure." Then he hung up.


End file.
